Review: BLAME IT ON BABY - DaBaby

DaBaby – BLAME IT ON BABY Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

By Eleni Haberis



“When you gone switch the flow?”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

If you know of rapper DaBaby, you've definitely thought this to yourself.

But if you go through and listen to DaBaby, you know that he's said these exact words, and then immediately ignored them. And honestly, Jonathan Kirk’s combo of a playful, “fuck-you-I-wont-do-what-you-tell-me” attitude and energetic flow made us fall in love with him. But how long can one charismatic trick hold up? With his newest album BLAME IT ON BABY (his third album in less than two years), maybe we need more than just the flow to switch.

DaBaby shot up to fame in the last year and a half with the help of his huge personality, and of course his signature (but repetitive) flow. People seemed to really like that he was energetic and fresh; he just wanted to let you know that he, his friends, his jewelry, and his fame were all on the come up. And that they were having a really good time doing it. He was put on XXL’s 2019 Freshman class list alongside Megan Thee Stallion and Tierra Whack, and everyone was beyond hyped to see where this rookie was going to bring his game.

But DaBaby had only made one type of song, really. If you heard his big ones like “BOP” and “VIBEZ”, then you'd heard them all. And yet, at the same time: he really does make the hell out of that one song (lol). We didn’t care that they all sounded the same because we were having too much damn fun. Three albums and not a lot of recovery time for fans later, DaBaby tries to switch the focus to what else he can do, but just ends up exposing his flaws. 

Most of the tracks on BLAME IT ON BABY sound like they could have been found on any of his other albums. “Talk About It” and “Amazing Grace” have that familiar flow, and are still fun enough lyrically to feel sort of fresh. However, the other tracks that stand out on this album unfortunately don’t do so for the right reasons. It feels like DaBaby knows that he has to go somewhere new with his sound, and these songs are little experiments to a possible new direction.

He tries branching out a little into a heavier reliance on his own vocals; for example on “Find My Way”, and even on “NASTY” ft. Ashanti and Meg, he’s sounding comfortable on late 90s influenced beats, but when he starts singing a hook or rapping on the same note… the song just falls flat. DaBaby could honestly speak in raps for the rest of his life, but only in the style he knows. At this point, with as underwhelming an album as BLAME IT ON BABY, that prospect no longer sounds as entertaining as it does stale.

But perhaps there is no bigger a misfire on this project than DaBaby’s attempt at sad boy rap™. He literally starts his song, actually titled, “Sad Sh*t” with “ Let me do some sad shit for the real n*****”... Please, we asked you to simply switch up the flow, not turn off the fun. It’s as if his own question was more confusing to him than he thought.

This album is honestly a mess. More than anything, it reads as DaBaby wanting to create a piece of pop culture with an immediately recognizable timestamp; aka, having this album cover as him in a face mask so that everyone will always remember this as a COVID-19 album. In that regard, BLAME IT ON BABY is a success! Unfortunately, just about everywhere else on this album is either one note, the same note, or pretty flat.

BOPS: "ROCKSTAR"
DUDS: "SAD SH*T," "FIND MY WAY," "PICK UP"

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